The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) has recorded a surge in the mobile renewal service of its membership in the month of November.
According to a release by the corporate affairs directorate of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), the cumulative number of mobile renewals from January 2019 to October 2020 stands at 11,762,277 with the number of renewals for the month of November 2020 alone, totaling 805, 268.
This represents a 17 per cent increase over that of the preceding month of October 2020 which stood at 690,759.
Giving a further breakdown of the figures, the release indicated that mobile renewals by membership category, a total of 387,671 representing 48.1 per cent representing children under the age of 18 years were captured as the membership category with the highest renewals via mobile phone using the short code *929# for the month of November 2020.
They were followed by persons in the informal sector with 333,983 renewals, the aged (70 years and above) with 41,967, SSNIT contributors with 36,419 and SSNIT pensioners with 5,228.
The Eastern, Central and Western North regions recorded the highest surge in the usage of the mobile renewal service respectively with 39 per cent, 31 per cent and 29 per cent when compared to the figures of the month of October 2020.
In order of district ranking, Ga, Techiman and Bantama recorded the top three highest numbers of mobile renewals with a total of 14,790, 14,152, and 12,305 respectively.
The NHIS Mobile Renewal Service is a fast, reliable and seamless digitised innovation designed for NHIS members to renew the validity of their membership via mobile phone. The Mobile Renewal Service can be accessed by simply dialing *929# on any mobile money enabled mobile phone.
Not only does the service allow members to renew their membership, but it also provides access to the NHIS medicines list, benefit package, and serves as the sole avenue to link the Ghana card with the NHIS card.
The service also offers members the opportunity to provide feedback on their attendance to any NHIA credentialed service provider.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri